[Content Warnings: Mention of blood, depictions of alcoholism and depression]

Josh Manning bolts upright in his sheets, screaming. His hands fly to his face. Tears indistinguishable from sweat indistinguishable from blood. He gasps. He’s drowning. Drowning in a black prison cell.

He pants. Feels his heart thundering in his chest. Feels the sheets slick with his sweat. Sweat. Feels the bed. Not slanted. His bed. In his room. Feels his heart slowing down. Feels his pants come under his control. He sits there in the darkness. Silent.

He gets up. Puts on a shirt and shoes. Leaves without breakfast before the sun has even risen.

His hand doesn’t stop throbbing for the rest of the morning.

Josh went to work. Sorting out Headspaces. He organised someone’s thoughts in the morning; He polished an old memory while he skipped lunch; He tussled with a Mindworm before dinner; He tickled a mental itch in the evening; He went home and fell asleep.

Josh went to work. Avoiding Breadspace. He played hide-and-seek with an Imaginary Friend in the morning; He fabricated gloves to hide his avatar’s hands after lunch; He ran away from a Nightmare during dinner; He Headrushed someone getting drunk late at night; He stumbled home and collapsed, asleep.

Josh went to work. Losing his friends. He didn’t call Martin in the morning; He ignored the group chat of psychics in the afternoon; He didn’t show up to the event Calla had invited him to at the bookstore before dinner; He didn’t go out for drinks in the evening; He stayed home and tried to fall asleep. He’s done this before. Pushing people away. He knows it doesn’t take long. Knows he can’t afford friends. He has to focus on work. Focus on the now. Don’t think about the future. Don’t let the past back in. Work now until he’s too exhausted to think. Then sleep, and hope the nightmares don’t come for him. Hope he doesn’t wake up in another alley or to barred windows.

That night Josh picked up the bottle and set it down considerably lighter.

There is banging on your apartment door. You try to ignore it, try to sink back into oblivion. The noise won’t let you. You stagger to your feet, feeling the whole world shift around you. You teeter and stumble the few short steps to your door and wrench it open, head groaning.

Outside stand the stern faces of Calla, Martin, Nick and Coffey.

You sober up quickly. They can’t be here. You can’t let them see you here. Your instincts to bolt, to flee, kick in, and for a mad moment you consider vaulting past them and down the stairwell.

“Josh… please.” It’s Coffey. All the way from Paris. You see her face isn’t stern, it’s worried. For you.

“What is this?” Your voice is barely audible as it forces its way through your scratchy throat and puffy lips. You already know what this is.

The trio gently manoeuvre you back into your apartment, gingerly stepping over discarded food cartons and aluminium cans, until they have you sitting down on your only available chair. Then they talk.

Their words are slow, carefully chosen. They go over your head anyway. Even if you could find the energy to focus, you don’t deserve this. You had your second chance when Linus Ficknaire received his verdict. You were finally, truly free. It had even felt like it at first. When you’d found a new job, practised your psychic skills, talked with Martin and Nick. Those days when you’d sworn off alcohol and determined to pick up the scattered pieces of your life. Then what did you go and do? You threw it all away again. Just like last time. “Josh. Josh, please, listen to me.” You find your mind slowly reeling back to the present, wading through the silty gunk of your thoughts as your eyes slowly settle on Nick’s concerned face. You took away his father, and he still wants to help you. You’d cry, if every night hadn’t long since dried away your tears.

“Josh, you’re going to destroy yourself. You were on the right track, you just slipped. You can get back on it again.”

How? It had taken a murderer being caught for you to climb out of rock bottom last time. You don’t even have someone else to blame this time. So what do you have?

“We’re your friends, Josh,” says Martin. “We aren’t going to let you run away from us.”

You stare up at the fretting face of Calla, the kind gaze of Martin, the determined stare of Coffey, and the pleading eyes of Nick. They’re here, your friends, even though you tried to cut them off. Even though you tried to make them think you didn’t care for them. They stayed.

Is that the difference? That last time your friends had let you push them away? That this time you go through hell, you won’t have to do it alone?

“We’re going to help you up as many times as you fall,” resolves Calla.

Amazingly, you find you do still have it in you to cry.

“Um, hi. It- it’s Josh. Josh Manning. For the eleven o’clock? I- I’m here… I’m here to see the therapist.”